the angry man

people say that if there was an angry man in your house, there will always be an angry man in your house

for a long time, i was worried that was me. that i was the angry man. that i took after my father, only worse--i don't need the veil of alcohol to begin and end screaming matches, or to degrade and curse and humiliate the people that thought they loved me. this is true, to an extent. i tend to keep my house empty, so that there is only one man and only one anger.

but where i live is not my home; that's back in rural iowa, in a ghost town, play-pretend-suburb surrounded by corn fields and dying lightning bugs and wannabe southern accents. back home, i am the angry man my mother cannot escape--my mother is the angry man i cannot escape.

funnily enough, it is no longer my father. the guilt of ruining his only daughter's life weighs heavy on him enough to subdue. there is an acute difference between a roiling boil and a hefty simmer; he's managed to cool into the latter. 

but, while i've been gone, it seems my mother has come to fill the void of angry man (there will always be an angry man in your house). unlike my father and i, we don't stand in opposition, nor do we lock antlers like adolescent stags to battle for the title of angriest--i bow my head in submission easily.

my mother has taken up the habit of yelling. i cannot make you understand the significance of such a fact unless you have worn my shoes and slept in my childhood bed. but she has started yelling, and cursing, and closing doors. the closed doors are the most horrible feeling, like everything that was once mine to love has shut itself to me in my absence, like i am unwelcome. i feel unwelcome.

in chicago, i spend most of my time in my dorm room because i have carefully curated it to be my ideal space. this is a goal i've accomplished quite well, and i thoroughly enjoy the hours my roommates must think i spend locked away like a hermit. maybe this is true, but it is because i thrive in the close walls and the dozens of posters and the dying fairy lights.

here, i spend most of my time in my room because i cannot stand it otherwise. i can still hear her shouting through the walls, but at least i don't have to pretend as if i do not. these walls are empty. i took everything down a week before i left. they're gray and lifeless, and i hate it here. i keep thinking to myself how much i wish i had lied and told her i couldn't come home for another week. it's horrible. i feel like i've betrayed her, somehow. but she is angry and i don't know why other than she missed feeling something other than emptiness and for that i cannot blame her. that's why i'm angry, too.